After our week and a half in Sydney, you would think that was the end of our vacation. But wait, there’s more! We still had another ten days in friendly New Zealand!

We hopped on a flight into Auckland, and landed midday. What can I say about northern New Zealand? It really reminded me of Canada. The land is something like a mix of Nova Scotia and the Okanagan valley – rolling hills, pastures, coast. It really is a beautiful place.

Our time in Auckland proper was short. We checked into an apartment hotel for the night, mostly just looking forward to doing laundry for the night. We had one day in the city to enjoy the sights before heading out on the road for a driving tour of the north island. In the morning, we got up to wander around a bit. We walked downtown, but we were threatened by rain and whiny children, so we didn’t stick around too long. There were some nice harbour views, but, really, not much else to do.

After some afternoon napping – and more laundry – we grabbed some burgers for dinner (I had venison!) and went for a drive. We ended up down the coast, where we found an awesome playground for the kids right along the beach. J spent a while looking for mermaid seashells – you know, the ones you wear over your mermaid boobies. She could only find one, and she was very disappointed when I told her she couldn’t wear it… meanwhile, LittleB headed into the playground. He doesn’t really like playing with other kids, so normally he avoids playgrounds until they clear out. He circled the place, looking for an opening, until he spied a group of huge maori kids playing on this spinning tire toy. I guess those were his people! He jumped on there and spent the next half hour trying to win at some sort of “spin the tire as fast as possible and see who falls off first” game. It looked like he was having a riot.

Jumping out of chronological order, we also spent our final day in NZ visiting our friends in Auckland. It was great to see how the locals live it up, and they were kind enough to show us around the parks and playgrounds in the area. We had a lovely view of the city from the top of Mount Wellington. It was a great way to end a great trip!

Mount wellington 1

Jovie on the “flying fox”

Looking out over the old volcano

On the mountain again

But don’t worry, there’s still more. After yet some more laundry, the next day we hit the road for our visit to Rotorua, the thermal wonderland of NZ. Coming up next!